Guest writer

Teachable moment

Start at beginning to halt illiteracy

— Once again, Arkansas comes in last. The recent report on vocabulary levels from the National Assessment of Educational Progress gives us yet another snapshot of low literacy in our state, but this time the problem is framed in a brand-new way. Let’s use it as a teachable moment.

While the assessment has a 42-year history of regularly describing the literacy skills of U.S. students, this new report, “Vocabulary Results from the 2009 and 2011 NAEP Reading Assessments,” is the first look at the words students in the fourth, eighth and 12th grades understand and can use proficiently as they read. Rankings included the District of Columbia and Department of Defense schools. Arkansas’ fourth-graders came in 42nd;eighth-graders ranked 44th, and our 12th-graders were at the rock bottom at 52nd.

Vocabulary levels and reading comprehension go hand in hand. Simply put: To understand what is on the page, you haveto know what the words mean. This is not a new revelation. What is important about this report, however, is that it gives policymakers, parents and concerned citizens a concrete way to think about the problem of low literacy and how to prevent it.

Literacy is about words. First and foremost, it is about those we hear from the minute we are born. Research in neuroscience and developmental psychology has revealed that the process of becoming literate begins at birth, and the experiences and stimulation babies receive in the first 36 months of life form the entire foundation of their social, emotional and cognitive abilities, as well as language skills. Crucial to this developmental process are parents and caregivers who are responsive to babies’ cues, provide engaging face-to-face interaction, and expose them to complex vocabulary and sentence structure.

Listening to words, developing an understanding of their meaning, realizing how they relate to a given context, and using them in dialogue with others are all vital components of becoming literate. So is recognizing that in addition to being heard, words can be seen (or felt, as with Braille). A child’s discovery that squiggles on a page can represent letters, words and sounds is a cognitive leap facilitated by learning words and using ageappropriate picture books.

The Reach Out and Read program is based on this understanding. In this proven model, beginning at the sixmonth well-child visit, doctors talk toparents about the importance of sharing books with babies, prescribe reading daily, and give them a free book to take home. Doctors also refer parents who want to improve their reading skills to adult literacy programs. The result is that their children enter kindergarten with the vocabulary and pre-literacy skills they need, a significant outcome considering half of all kindergartners come to school unprepared to learn to read.

Reach Out and Read was created to improve the development of children in poverty. Research shows that by age 5, the number of words spoken to a child varies by socioeconomic status: Children born into poverty hear 30 million fewer words than those raisedby college-educated parents. The number of hours low-socioeconomic-status kids are read to (25) is also minuscule compared with the 1,500 hours their middle-class peers enjoy in the first five years.

Children in poverty aremore likely to be in special education, have poor reading skills, be held back a grade, have poor attendance, and drop out. Then, as parents, the cycle of functional illiteracy continues if they don’t provide the language and printrich environment youngsters need.

New parents need to know how to use books with babies-even if they don’t read well-because the path to literacy is clear: The number of words a 3-year-old knows is predictive of his third-grade reading level, and those literacy skills are an indicator of their future learning and success.

Reading by the end of third grade is the focus of the Arkansas Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, part of a nationwide initiative, sponsored here by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. It is bringing together diverse agencies, groups and communities to build partnerships that will help children be ready for school, become proficient readers, and have bright futures.

They have it right. Working together, sharing ideas and rethinking use of resources is the only way real change will happen. So, when millions of dollars for parent outreach and education, early childhood enrichment and reading tutors are left unspent, one has to ask “why?”

It’s not as if we don’t know the solution to the problem.

Peggy Sissel-Phelan of Little Rock is a cofounder of Reach Out and Read Arkansas, and is currently president of Arkansas Literacy Councils Inc.

Editorial, Pages 13 on 12/26/2012

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